Bastard Nation advocates for the civil and human rights of adult citizens who were adopted as children. Millions are prohibited by law from accessing personal records that pertain to their historical, genetic and legal identities. Such records are held by their governments in secret and without accountability, due solely to the fact that they were adopted.
Bastard Nation campaigns for the restoration of their right to access their records. End a hidden legacy of shame, fear and venality.

Thursday, January 26, 2012

access to identifying information for adoptions original birth
certificate

Missouri House
Judiciary Committee

January 25, 2012

OPPOSE

Privilege is the
opposite of rights

Bastard
Nation: the Adoptee Rights Organization is the largest Adoptee civil
rights organization in the United States. We support full access for
all adopted persons to their original birth certificates (OBC)
without restriction.. HB 1137 is not an unrestricted bill and we
oppose it.

Under current
Missouri law, the original birth certificates of all Missouri
Adoptees are sealed and cannot be released to the adoptee without a
court order.

Missouri's current “identifying
information access” law is a confusing, convoluted labyrinth that
serves only a handful of adoptees who successfully navigate its
bureaucracy. Those few who do succeed receive only “identifying
information” without the release of the OBC. .

HB 1157 makes no substantial changes
in that law. It simply substitutes OBC release for the current
informal identifying information forwarded to the adoptee, keeping
the rest of the bureaucracy in place. It,fact, this bill actually
increases the bureaucracy by adding the Department of Social Services
to the list of agencies that can be involved in the release.

HB 1137 reinforces outdated
adoption secrecy present in the current law. It includes the
misnamed “contact preference form”which enables biological
parents, upon request, to prohibit the state from releasing to the
OBC. A genuine “contact preference form”as Oregon, Alabama, New
Hampshire, Maine, and Rhode Island have enacted permits a
biological parent to state a preference regarding contact,
with the adoptee, with no legal ramifications. The “contract
preference form “in HB1137, is simply a softer name for the
“affidavit of nondisclosure form” in current law, and continues
to let third parties legally bar the adoptee from receiving the OBC—a
privilege or “special right” that no third party, not even a
parent, can evoke against the not-adopted.

Furthermore, the submission of a
medical history form, mandated for biological parents who file a
veto, is invasive and may be in violation of the federal HIPAA. Law.
While family medical histories are desirable for everyone, no one
has a right to anyone else s, and adoptees should not be the
exception. The entire impetus for adoptee rights, in fact, is that
adopted people need to be treated the same as everyone else, nothing
more and nothing less.

Sooner or later Missouri, and every
other state that has not opened OBC’s unconditionally to adoptees,
are going to be forced to d so. The issue isn't going away. This is
not a matter of if, but when.

Adopted adults, especially since
9/11, are increasingly denied passports, driver’s licenses,
pensions, Social Security benefits, professional certifications,
security clearances and other entitlements due to discrepancies on
their amended birth certificates, and their inability to produce an
original birth certificate to answer the problems.

Adoptees
without a genuine original birth record could soon be barred from
running for public office. At least 10 states, including Missouri
(HB 283; ss Lyle Rowland, Mike Kelly) have
introduced legislation requiring presidential and vice-presidential
candidates to present their original birth certificates to
appropriate authorities to prove citizenship eligibility for office.
Some of these bills go farther, mandating anyone running for office
to prove citizenship through an original birth certificate. It is no
stretch to think that someday soon adoptees could be barred from
voting due to lack of “legal” identity over problematical amended
birth certificates, and the perpetual sealing of the
originals.

Kansas and Alaska have never sealed original birth
certificates. Since 1999 five states have restored to adoptees the
unrestricted right to records and identity access: Oregon through
ballot initiative, and Alabama, New Hampshire, Maine, and Rhode
Island through legislation. No statistics are available for Kansas
and Alaska, but approximately 17,000 OBCs in the former states have
been released with no reported consequences. (Rhode Island won't
open until July 1, 2012)

Rights are for all citizens, not
favors doled out to some. Missouri does not segregate rights by
religion, ethnicity, age, or gender. It should not segregate rights
by birth, adoptive status, or third party “preference.”

HB 1137, as it is currently written does nothing to restore the right
of all Missouri adoptees to their own original birth certificates.
Unless this bill is amended –basically re-written to restore the
rights of all, we urge you to vote DO NOT PASS. All Missouri Adoptees
must enjoy equal protection, due process, and dignity. Missouri
Adoptees deserve better than HB 1137!

Bastard Nation is dedicated to the
recognition of the full human and civil rights of adult Adoptees.
Toward that end, we advocate the opening to Adoptees, upon request at
age of majority, of those government documents which pertain to the
Adoptee's historical, genetic, and legal identity, including the
unaltered original birth certificate and adoption decree. Bastard
Nation asserts that it is the right of people everywhere to have
their official original birth records unaltered and free from
falsification, and that the adoptive status of any person should not
prohibit him or her from choosing to exercise that right. We have
reclaimed the badge of bastardy placed on us by those who would
attempt to shame us; we see nothing shameful in having been born out
of wedlock or in being adopted. Bastard Nation does not support
mandated mutual consent registries or intermediary systems in place
of unconditional open records, nor any other system that is less than
access on demand to the adult Adoptee, without condition, and without
qualification.

Our
Washington representative cannot attend the hearing today so we are
submitting this testimony via email.

Bastard Nation: the Adoptee Rights
Organization is the largest adoptee civil rights organization in the
United States. We support full, unrestricted access for all adopted
persons, to their original birth certificates. (OBC).

Bastard Nation's roots are in
Washington State, and we would like nothing more than to support HB
2211. Unfortunately we cannot.

The sticking point is HB 2211's
“affidavit of non-disclosure,” otherwise known as a disclosure
veto. This veto creates a special third party privilege for
birthparents that no one, parent or otherwise, possesses: to
bypass state law and to personally bar release of another person's
birth certificate to the person to whom it pertains.

Already in place for adoptions
finalized on and after October 1 1993, HB 2022 would expand this
onerous and discriminatory veto privilege to cover all adoptions;
thus expanding the pool of segregated adoptees unable to access
their OBCs, even when the vast majority of the state's adoptees
could..

Interestingly, HB 2211 expires on July
1, 2012, all current vetoes on file. Those birthparents wishing to
remain on the veto books would be required to file a new disclosure
veto limited to two years duration, and subject to continued filings
every two years.

It appears that the sponsors of the
bill have it half right. They are willing to permit the state's
adopted class OBC access—unless a third part objects—but limit
that third party objection to two year increments. That is, the
sponsors appear to find something inherently wrong with vetoes, but
feel some sort of obligation to the keep them going .Such an attitude
may justify past bad legislation but does not justify denying the
adoptees of Washington State the restoration of their civil rights.
There is no middle way when it comes to rights: a right exists or it
doesn't, and it is not contingent on third party approval.

Sooner or later Washington and every
other state that has not opened OBCs unconditionally to adoptees are
going to be forced to. The issue isn't going away. This is not a
matter of if, but when.

Adopted adults, especially since 911,
are increasingly denied passports, drivers licenses, pensions, Social
Security benefits, professional certifications, and security
clearances due to discrepancies on their amended birth certificates,
and their inability to produce an original birth certificate to
answer the problems. Proposed changes in passport application
regulations will make it literally impossible for some adoptees to
ever receive a passport without an accessible paper trial to the OBC.

Adoptees without a genuine original birth record could soon
be barred from running for public office.‭ ‬Last year, at least‭
‬10‭ ‬states, introduced legislation requiring presidential and
vice-presidential candidates to present their original birth
certificates to appropriate authorities to prove citizenship
eligibility for office.‭ ‬Some of these bills go farther,‭
‬mandating anyone running for office to prove citizenship through
an original birth certificate.‭ ‬It is no stretch to think that
someday soon adoptees could be barred from voting due to lack of‭
“‬legal.‭”birth certificates.

Should these rights and entitlements be
abrogated for adoptaees because OBC access might make some people
“uncomfortable?”

As I said in the beginning, were it not
for the disclosure veto in all it;'s forms,, including modified, we
and our members would happy to support HB 2211.

We recommend that Washington State make
history, and simply expire permanently all vetoes currently in place.
Amend HB 2211 with the following:

remove the expansion of the disclosure veto

vacate all disclosure veto language from the current law

unilaterally expire all vetoes currently on file on the effective date of HB 2211

Kansas and Alaska have never sealed
original birth certificates. Since 1999 six states have restored to
adoptees the unrestricted right to records and identity access:
Oregon through ballot initiative, and Alabama, New Hampshire, Maine,
and Rhode Island through legislation. No statistics are available for
Kansas and Alaska, and Rhode Island's records won't be opened until
July 1, 2012, but approximately 17,000 OBCs in the latter five states
have been released with no reported ill consequences.

Rights
are for all citizens, not favors doled out to some. Washington does
not segregate rights by religion, ethnicity, age, or gender. It
should not segregate rights by birth, adoptive status, or third party
preference.

Unless you amend HB 2211 to a
clean bill to recognize the right of all of the state's adopted
people to their own OBC without restriction, then vote DO NOT PASS
. Washington adoptees must enjoy equal protection, due process, and
dignity, not favors.

Bastard
Nation is dedicated to the recognition of the full human and civil
rights of adult adoptees. Toward that end, we advocate the opening to
adoptees, upon request at age of majority, of those government
documents which pertain to the adoptee's historical, genetic, and
legal identity, including the unaltered original birth certificate
and adoption decree. Bastard Nation asserts that it is the right of
people everywhere to have their official original birth records
unaltered and free from falsification, and that the adoptive status
of any person should not prohibit him or her from choosing to
exercise that right. We have reclaimed the badge of bastardy placed
on us by those who would attempt to shame us; we see nothing shameful
in having been born out of wedlock or in being adopted. Bastard
Nation does not support mandated mutual consent registries or
intermediary systems in place of unconditional open records, nor any
other system that is less than access on demand to the adult adoptee,
without condition, and without qualification.